Uh, maybe it's just me but...if the engine would do it, and it was chopped up to keep the consoles from melting down, then it's not really the engine limiting the developers now is it?

Yes, the OP is right.

The problem is, I can't afford 500 Gig of drivespace for one game....

It is because the engine is so poorly optimized.

Sure a powerful computer might be able to force through the poor optimization to allow a full strip where a console won't, but it's still a limitation of the engine because there are plenty of console games that allow huge open spaces and large crowds. Ever played Dead Rising 2?

Yep, my PC would be able to handle much more than this game throws at it (and this game throws underarm), but if the game were made to fit my spec, only 10% of the people who are currently playing the game would be able to run it. But it needs to work on lower end systems, and then everyone with lower end systems starts moaning that they want better graphics and bigger cells with more NPCs, more this, more that - seemingly without any realisation that if that were the case they wouldn't be able to get the game started... honestly I'm completely sick of all the whining on this forum.

They should've made the pc version have the area in the strip cut in half instead, as most peoples machine can run this. My only real problem with the game so far besides the lack luster strip, which i'm too bothered with and hoping mods will solve it, is the poor optimisation VATs for me is mostly broken worse than Fo3 for some reason, and not to mention the rest of the glaringly obvious bugs.

Epona222 the game could be upped and most people machines would still run it fine, just at slightly lower settings. The biggest reason for the cutting up was consoles, and imo it would've still been needed for lower end machines.

Yeah I know but there are rules here about saying bad things about consoles/PCs (for good reason) and I try to stay within the lines, I'm not a rulebreaker at heart. But whatever would affect consoles would also affect low-end PC users. And I don't want people to be cut off from playing the game whatever platform they have, I just want people to realise that they can't have the moon on a stick and stop bloody moaning about every last little thing.

I guess if you're on PC then there's hope that eventually there will be mods that expand it a bit, but I guess that will have impacts performance-wise.

E.g. CevSteel has already started a NV version of his great DCInteriors Mod, which will probably fix some of the boarded up buildngs.
And adding some NPCs via mods shouldn't be too hard either.

Size is fine to me, just much more Gambler is needed
Maybe full every tables? I'm sure game could handle that

I like rampa.... I mean Gamble in vibrant and crowded places.

I'm not disappointed, since I saw the strip in the trailers.......it is strange that apparently the NCR troopers just walk drunk around the strip and never actually gamble in the casinos.

Personally I think it would have been great if the flashy exterior of Gomorah (for instance) had led to a compound that was similar to megaton in FO3 with a bar, doctor/chem dealer, traders, hotel (with hokers) and gambling hall. I mean you walk through the flashy door...loading screen....and you not in a flashy casino, you in a megaton style settlement (less metal shanty, more run down buildings) and when you turn around you can see the shell of the casino front being used to draw you in.

Also the families should have been tougher, with more muscle (well armed and armoured back up for the guys walking round in suits out front) and there should have been missions where you could support one of the families against the others, House probably wouldn't have cared about the odd robbery or assassination going on between the families as long as it remained behind the scenes.

Have not finished reading all the comments so forgive me. Question that you are making is the game is not like current Vegas. But did the FallOut universe have a Vegas strip the same as ours? :confused:

That's what you get when the levels are designed for an xbox.

the first time I came to new vegas I thought also WTF, this is it? but now I think in the circumstances of a post-apocalyptic world it is remarkable. you can't compare new vegas with the las vegas of today.

man that was awesome xDD

Beth/Obsidian need to update to a more robust game engine, or, Gamebryo needs to tweak the current engine such that it only renders what you can actually see, and NOT everything in your field of view, weather you can see it or not...... Fix that one flaw in the game, and the need for closed cities would be dramatically reduced.

I would never compare New Vegas to Las Vegas because that would be silly. However, when I look at the game trailers and listen to the developers hype about this oasis in the desert that is teeming with life, I can't help but become very disappointed with the lack of NPCs active in each load screen. Actually, I could count with two hands the amount of people milling about and this lack of activity easily dwarfs all those flashy, neon lights installed around the Strip. I don't need the Strip to be expanded; I do need to see more character activity that will convince me that New Vegas is the place to be in the Mojave. The fact that others are excusing the incredibly low population as being due to the post-apocalyptic setting puzzles me. This is not the Capital Wasteland for pete's sake.

The real Las Vegas is one of my least favorite places in the USA, so I'm not too bothered by the scale and population of New Vegas. But I will admit that it's less impressive than the game trailers made it out to be -- I felt a little let down, too. There was a bit of creativity involved there and maybe it built some expectations that the actual product didn't fulfill.

I'm mostly posting because I'm getting sort of irritated by a lot of people on these boards. Why all the emotional reactions to stuff like this? It really gives a bad impression. Use your heads, guys.

If this was only on PC we wouldn't have these problems. Consoles svck!
This game is designed and produced to make money for a corporation and provide income for its employees. A console version will sell many more copies of a game than a PC version. XBox and PS3 players are funding the PC version. It's been that way for years. Does it negatively affect PC only players? Maybe, but only those able to afford (or clever enough to have built) a high-end machine.
Honestly, the PC crowd here come across like elitist snobs. Is that really the impression you are trying to convey?

It's not realistic!
If it were realistic it would be a huge landscape full of ruins, corpses and empty wind. This is a game based on impossible circumstances.
Is it economically unrealistic (should there be more casinos, patrons, etc)? Eh. I'm sure the devs would have loved to pack in the crowds but they had to work with the tools they had. Bethesda's sandbox games require a willing suspension of disbelief -- we are adventuring in a representative distillation of the different game worlds, not an actual scale model of them. This is why you can walk hundreds of miles in a day. This is why there are so few people. This is why those few people include some who exist, seemingly, only to provide information to the player. This is why you can't pry boards off doors and explore inside. It's why hardcoe mode doesn't make you poop. And it's why New Vegas has a dozen or so people milling around. Even if you had a magic computer that could render a 'real' landscape, and the devs had a time machine and an immortality serum so they could code the damned thing, most people here would just complain that it's too big and empty. And it would be, because realism and RPGs don't mix. Go out and shoot yourself with a .22. Then ask how realistic you want your games to be.

Okay. Rant mode off. Just... try to think before you post. Please?

I think a lot of this comes down to how the game "feels" to each individual. I think it feels like Mr. House restored what he could in direct relation to what was close to his casino and said "to hell with the rest of it". So he restored what he could control and let the rest rot. That being said I think they would have done well to add a few empty casinos or casinos outside the strip inhabited by fiends or even deathclaws.

How sweet it would have been to walk up to an old abandoned casino on the outskirts of Vegas maybe a little past the clinic to the north some that was half ass walled around (in a vain attempt to keep what is in there IN there) with the deathclaw signs on the outside of the walls and on the top floor, a mother deathclaw watching over her eggs and little ones.
Maybe intelligent deathclaws? I guess those are all dead though :sadvaultboy: but...I digress.

Even if not that specific idea a few abandoned casinos would have been nice because even in 1950 there was more then 4-5 casinos on the strip. My guess is it was a technical issue that forced the decision but I could be wrong.

Ive seen two areas that might become another length on the strip with a few secureitrons guarding (if you walk to the end of the strip where the NCR post is)
maybe there will be another casino or 2 added in DLC.....

Off the strip, I was disappointed by a place with so much potential!

I don't know why the Strip couldn't have been as big, populated and impressive as the Washington Mall in Fallout 3. If the neon lighting effects are eating into console memory, ditch them and use animated textures instead, with just a few light sources (nobody would notice the difference); or just write a plot point that electricity is at a premium and and only a few bulbs can be used! Broken up into three small sections the 'wow' factor is replaced with a 'is that it?' reaction, which nullifies the value of all the lighting anyway.

The main reason for the Strip being so small is due to limitations of the engine. Its also the reason its heavily instanced.

I was very disappointed in the strip as well, and not because of it's size. I can understand why its small both from the actual game programming reasons and from the story reasons (house had only so much time to restore what he could). That all makes sense and i am fine with that. The part that really let me down was the fact that it's all FAKE :shakehead: :facepalm:
The awesome part of being in DC in FO3 was the fact that you were in....DC. Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, National Archives, White House....the list goes on. New Vegas isn;t really new "vegas"...it's new "any name will do" because it's all fictional...I was very disappointed

Now, with that said, I love all the Fallout games and am having a blast playing NV...but...developing and marketing a game as taking place in a post nuclear Vegas and to have a "strip" that has absolutely NOTHING based on the actual strip was a big let down, and a bit deceiving.

Interesting, but there is a business reason why;

Bethesda had to pay Nothing in royalties to anyone for using the national land marks in the game, the same holds true for all the town and city names. Notice however you will not find any Company names from today - precisely for that reason.

Do you have ANY idea how much the Real Las Vegas casino's would charge in royalties to have their names in the game?

If that wasn't enough to stop them, I frankly don't think the Casino's would want themselves portrayed in this game - as in most cases the portrayal of the casino owners is frankly unflattering in the extreme. Can you imagine the reaction from Modern day casino's to the storyline behind the owners of the Tops? Gamorah? Ultra-Lux? Every one of the casino's in New Vegas is dark, does extremely evil things and in some cases, outragous things. I somehow doubt that the modern day casino's would want themselves portrayed like that, and even is so, would have charged ALOT of money for using their names.

Bethesda/Obsidian did the only rational thing to do - make up the casinos.

wrongity wrong, the war happened long after the 50s. if anything las vegas in the year 2070+ would have even more than it does today.

stop trying to kid yourself that the strip is okay. its weaksauce and its a direct result of the terrible, terrible engine they dont want to get rid of.

The Fallout universe DIVERGED from the 50's, So it would'nt be like it is today in OUR universe, PLUS half the city is blown up or crumbling in case you did'nt notice.